CHAPTER 6
Cole had spent seven seasons memorizing movement before it became threat.
A quarterback’s shoulder. A guard’s weight. A tight end looking one beat too long at the defender he intended to crack.
Ava’s signals were smaller and more honest.
She turned her face away when the room became too much. She opened one hand when she wanted the bottle and struck it twice against Mara’s chest when waiting offended her. She touched new textures with one finger before committing her palm.
Cole learned all of that in forty minutes at the accredited laboratory while the final witness forms were reviewed.
The swabs were sealed in tamper-evident envelopes. Both attorneys signed the collection record. A courier scanned the package and left through the public lobby rather than a team entrance.
No camera. No secret lab owned by one side. No suggestion that Ava had become evidence beyond the narrow truth being established.
Afterward, Mara carried her to a quiet family room to finish the delayed bottle. Cole followed by invitation.
The courier’s departure left them with twenty-three minutes before Mara’s next hospital obligation.
Cole asked how the lab would communicate results, what delay might mean, and whether any part required another sample.
He did not ask for reassurance that the percentage would confirm what his heart had already decided.
“Results release to counsel together,” Mara said. “Neither of us gets a head start.”
“Good.”
“You say that like you don’t want one.”
“I want every advantage. I am learning not to confuse wanting with entitlement.”
He looked at the sealed-kit receipt. “If the lab made a mistake?”
“Then process handles it. We don’t decide the result by resemblance.”
Cole’s gaze went to Ava. “She has my mother’s brow.”
“She also has my refusal to accept socks.”
“That may be a Barrett trait. My youngest sister spent one summer barefoot because she believed shoes were government overreach.”
Mara smiled. The glimpse of his family made the room briefly ordinary.
“Wash your hands,” Mara said.
He did.
“Sit back. She doesn’t know your balance yet.”
Cole sat against the sofa and watched Mara test the bottle against the inside of her wrist.
“You made that too hot yesterday,” he said.
Mara looked at him.
“At the event. Your mother cooled it under water.”
“You noticed?”
“I noticed everything.”
The sentence came out possessive. He corrected it before she had to.
“I was trying to. I know that’s not the same as understanding.”
Mara handed him the bottle. “Support her head and shoulders. Keep her angled. If she pushes it out twice, stop. She may be finished or need to burp.”
Cole had held nieces and nephews. He had never held a child whose existence rearranged every memory behind him.
Mara placed Ava carefully across his arms.
The baby stiffened.
Cole did not pull her closer. “Hi.”
Ava stared at his face.
He offered the bottle. She turned away.
Every abandoned part of him interpreted the motion before reason arrived.
Mara saw it. “She does that with me when she’s watching something.”
“What?”
“Your eyebrows, probably. They’re aggressive.”
Cole looked down at the serious miniature brow considering his. “That seems genetically unfair.”
Mara laughed once, surprised into it.
The sound took him back to nights when she called from the hospital parking garage and told him stories too tired to be polished. He had loved making her laugh before he admitted he wanted her.
Ava accepted the bottle.
Cole’s entire body became attention.
He watched the angle, her breathing, the tiny movement of her throat. When milk escaped at the corner of her mouth, he reached for the cloth Mara had placed within range.
“Not bad,” she said.
“That is not praise.”
“It is from a pediatric emergency nurse watching a linebacker feed her baby for the first time.”
Our baby remained unspoken. Cole did not reach for it.
Halfway through, Ava pushed the nipple out. Once. Twice.
He stopped.
“Burp her against your chest,” Mara said. “She may complain about repositioning.”
She did. Cole lifted her slowly, one broad hand spanning almost the whole of her back. Ava’s cheek rested against his shirt. Her fingers found the scar crossing his left forearm.
She traced the raised line.
“Sheet metal,” he said softly. “I was fourteen and smarter than every safety rule in Louisiana.”
Mara sat across from him. “Your father’s shop?”
“Neighbor’s barn. Dad made me clean the wound before he drove me to urgent care because blood in the truck upholstery was apparently the greater threat.”
“Joseph would respect the priority.”
The mention of Mara’s father opened another missing room. Ava had grandparents who knew her. A grandfather who had probably fixed toys, installed car seats, held her while Mara slept.
Jealousy came. Cole let it pass without turning it into accusation.
“Will they meet me?”
“After the result. With a plan.”
“All right.”
The answer tasted like waiting.
Ava burped with impressive force. Mara’s mouth curved.
“Linebacker,” Cole said.
“Gas is not a position group.”
“Film will decide.”
He offered the bottle again. Ava took three more ounces, then turned away. Cole did not coax. He set the bottle down and held her as Mara had shown him.
The room went quiet.
Outside, a printer ran. An elevator chimed. Ordinary sounds continued while Cole felt the exact weight of ten months missing from his arms.
Ava studied his scar, then his watch, then the hollow of his throat. Her eyelids lowered.
“She needs the sleep sack,” Mara said, but her voice had softened.
“Can she sleep here?”
“For a few minutes. Keep her airway clear.”
Cole adjusted nothing without instruction. He sat still while Ava’s breathing deepened against his chest.
His brother’s children had slept on him after the funeral because adults kept moving through their house and Cole was the only object too large to be displaced.
He remembered holding them and promising nothing else would change.
Then the season began, and he returned to Austin, and change happened without asking him.
This time he would stay.
The promise formed before he understood how dangerous it could become if stay meant control.
Mara watched him from the other chair. Guarded. Tired. Beautiful in a navy blouse and practical shoes, her calm face sharpened by everything she had carried without him.
Cole looked down at Ava.
Love did not erase anger. It made anger smaller than the grief beneath it.
For the first time, he understood exactly how much he had already missed.